<div dir="ltr"><div><div>My SMA micro-inverters have been rock solid for a couple of years. They do not taper off and do not communicate with the Sunny Island. The only issue I've had is that it seems that an internet connection is needed for the monitoring to work, even for the local monitoring. If there is no monitoring ie: power outage for the neighborhood DSL, then there is no direct way to see if they are working or not. Indirectly when off grid, my Trimetric is the best source of information on charge or discharge. A separate kWh would of course provide more accurate info on their status.<br><br></div><div>I believe that these have been discontinued now though.<br></div><div><br></div>Brad<br></div>AEE Solar<br></div><div class="gmail_extra"><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Thu, Sep 15, 2016 at 6:46 AM, Drake <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:drake.chamberlin@redwoodalliance.org" target="_blank">drake.chamberlin@redwoodalliance.org</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
<div>
Is it the consensus that Enphase 215 inverters on are the most reliable
micro inverters (even though the tech support may be lacking these days)?
<br><br>
Someone on this list mentioned that the SMA micros had a rocky time of
it. What were the problems with these? <br><br>
Do the SMA micro inverters taper charge when AC coupled with Sunny
Islands?<br><br>
Drake Chamberlin<br>
<i>Athens Electric LLC<br>
OH License 44810<br>
CO License 3773<br>
NABCEP Certified Solar PV <br>
<a href="tel:740-448-7328" value="+17404487328" target="_blank">740-448-7328</a><br>
</i><a href="http://athens-electric.com/" target="_blank">http://athens-electric.com/</a>
<br><br>
At 03:24 PM 9/14/2016, you wrote:<br><br>
<blockquote type="cite"><font size="4">Re 190's.<br>
</font><br>
<font size="4">Not much to learn from dissecting a swollen 190. Most of the
time the swelling is caused by electrolytic capacitors that have failed.
Some very high current capacitors actually have brackets to bolt them
down to minimize swelling.<br>
</font><br>
<font size="4">Frank BZP.</font><br><br>
<pre>BZ Products INC.
8801 Gravois Rd.
St.Louis MO 63123 USA
<a href="tel:314-644-2490" value="+13146442490" target="_blank">314-644-2490</a>
<a href="http://www.bz-products.net" target="_blank">www.bz-products.net</a></pre>
<font face="Courier New, Courier"></font>On 9/14/2016 1:58 PM, Benn
Kilburn wrote:<br>
<blockquote type="cite">You guys should really cut one
of those swelled up ones and share the photos with us :)<br><br>
Benn Kilburn <br>
SkyFire Energy Inc. <br>
<a href="tel:780-906-7807" value="+17809067807" target="_blank">780-906-7807</a><br><br>
On Sep 14, 2016, at 11:14 AM, Jerry Shafer
<<a href="mailto:jerrysgarage01@gmail.com" target="_blank">jerrysgarage01@gmail.com</a>
> wrote:<br><br>
<blockquote type="cite">The 190's had component issues
which case them to balloon up<br>
Jerry<br><br>
On Sep 14, 2016 10:11 AM, "William Miller"
<<a href="mailto:william@millersolar.com" target="_blank">william@millersolar.com</a>
> wrote:<br>
<dl>
<dd>Colleagues:<br><br>
</dd><dd>We have M190s fail in beach installations. Some have had the cases
swell up like there is a tumor inside. I haven't cut them open to see
what's inside because they need to go back to manufacturer. <br><br>
</dd><dd>William<br><br>
</dd><dd>On Sep 14, 2016, at 9:32 AM, Jerry Shafer
<<a href="mailto:jerrysgarage01@gmail.com" target="_blank">jerrysgarage01@gmail.com</a>
> wrote:<br><br>
<blockquote type="cite">
<dd>Mike<br>
</dd><dd>I also work near the ocean, its all around me here in Hawaii, we have
had the 190's fail but not to environmental conditions and very few
issues with 215's. Do you have any pics of the damage as l have seen very
little salt issues.<br>
</dd><dd>Jerry<br><br>
</dd><dd>On Sep 13, 2016 9:11 PM, "Mike Nelson"
<<a href="mailto:mdelectricsolar@gmail.com" target="_blank">
mdelectricsolar@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<br>
<dl>
<dd>I've had so many Enphase failures it's kind of ridiculous. We install
most of our systems near the ocean so corrosion has played a big factor.
The newer micro inverters are holding a much better, 215 and 250's. I
have learned over the years that SMA makes the best product, and I mostly
stick with them. Sometimes micro inverters are requested or really fit
the installation particulars, so I still use them occasionally. I haven't
yet tried solar edge.<br>
<br>
</dd><dd>Michael D Nelson<br>
</dd><dd>MD Electric & Solar, Inc.<br>
</dd><dd><a href="tel:707-684-0064" target="_blank">707-684-0064</a> mobile<br>
</dd><dd><a href="tel:707-884-1862" target="_blank">707-884-1862</a> office<br>
</dd><dd><a href="http://www.mdelectricsolar.com" target="_blank">www.mdelectricsolar.com</a>
<br>
</dd><dd>Sent from my iPhone<br><br>
</dd><dd>On Sep 13, 2016, at 6:23 PM, Rebecca Lundberg
<<a href="mailto:rebecca.lundberg@gmail.com" target="_blank">
rebecca.lundberg@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<br><br>
<blockquote type="cite">
<dd>Esteemed wrenches,<br><br>
</dd><dd>I'm hoping the experience of this list can help give us a broader
perspective on the current market performance and as a secondary concern,
tech support (or lack thereof), from solar micro-inverter
manufacturers.<br><br>
</dd><dd>Are others having much trouble with micro-inverters? We have had
repeated issues with several different brands on our systems in
Minnesota:<br>
</dd><dd>- 8 Enphase systems with mostly M210 and M215, have had to repeatedly
go back to sites to replace units. The new replacement ones seem to be
lasting better (we sure hope they will). Enphase is harder to contact in
recent years, but we're happy they at least provide a predictable
stipend. Are you also having to replace a lot of this brand of product?
Are the newer models holding up better?<br><br>
</dd><dd>- We gave a new inverter busbar design concept a try (tenKsolar) and
though the micro-inverters were supposed to take turns and be
'redundant,' the ones with APS micro-inverters needed 100% replacement
and the ones with Lead Solar micro-inverters have a problem where if one
of them fails it appears to send a signal to all the rest so the entire
busbar stops working -- in action it's far from redundant. When we
purchased the tenKsolar Rais Inverter Bus (RIB) the spec sheet didn't
tell us what brand of micro-inverter they would use as the OEM so we
couldn't research the viability of the product or company or warranty
stipend (or lack there-of) of the micro-inverter OEM. We assumed it was a
tenKsolar product and they would provide warranty replacements, service,
and tech support, but our experience has been far from that. When
something goes wrong tenK says 'it's not our product that's failing'
because they don't actually manufacture the micro-inverter (it's an OEM),
the micro-inverter company says 'it's not our product' because tenKsolar
has it wired and used in a very unique manner specific to the tenKsolar
product, so both manufacturers are backing away from any responsibility.
A 25-year warranty on the inverter busbar is a great concept but if/when
something goes wrong there is no support and no apparent warranty at all
except maybe they will send us a new component that needs several hours
of work to re-install, so either the installer does the warranty work for
free or the customer has a very unexpected expense to get their system
back up and running a year or two after it was installed; we think both
scenarios are unacceptable (from our installer perspective :-), do any of
you have experiences you can share here?<br>
<br>
</dd><dd>I'm wondering if the climate in MN makes us an anomaly. Based on
these micro-inverter experiences we feel like the Rapid Shutdown rule has
forced us to use dc optimizers on residential applications whether we
want to or not -- is that pretty much what all of you are doing too?
<br><br>
</dd><dd><font size="2">Rebecca Lundberg<br>
</font>
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